Commercial aircraft have been traditionally assembled by using techniques that utilize multiple tooling. These multiple tooling techniques were utilized to locate the various parts and components that make up the fuselage and body sections of the commercial aircraft, so that the parts fit together correctly during assembly. These types of assembly techniques using multiple tooling to locate the various parts, proved to be costly. Accordingly, some commercial aircraft manufacturers and the like, adopted an alternative, more cost effective assembly philosophies, such as, determinative assembly techniques, or “DA.”
Determinative assembly is an alternative manufacturing philosophy or technique to traditional assembly methods and techniques wherein placement of the parts or components for attachment is preset. This preset placement is accomplished through the placement of a limited number of very accurate locating holes on each and every part, DA holes on each and every part, which are located at strategic positions on each part. The DA holes enable the components and parts of a fuselage of a commercial aircraft, for example, to be precisely pinned together during manufacture and assembly. This alternative manufacturing philosophy enables the manufacture and assembly of a commercial aircraft, for example, to be more efficient and less costly because the design and construction of locating and alignment tools, as required by the previously described manufacturing techniques, are not required.
During the assembly a commercial aircraft, for example, assembly and locating tools are used to assemble the fuselage. The fuselage skin is typically made up of a series of individual circumferential sections, or barrels, each comprising a series of 4-5 panels spliced together. Oftentimes when the fuselage is being assembled, it is required or preferred that the passenger floor grid be installed simultaneously. The individual passenger floor beams or joists of the floor grid are aligned with the fuselage skin at preset attachment locations using tooling that accurately locates the floor grid for X, Y and Z positioning. The skin panels of the fuselage are also aligned to the joists of the floor grid via the same tooling. The floor beams and the fuselage skin panels oftentimes do not line up perfectly due to misalignment or dimensional variation of the large assemblies.
Accordingly, in order to address and overcome the aforementioned misalignment between the fuselage skin and the floor joists, the tooling is employed to maneuver the various fuselage skin panels. The tooling can take various forms however generally, the tooling attaches to the frame structure of the multiple skin panels that make up circumferential sections of fuselage. The tooling is then attached to the floor joist or beam to be aligned. The tooling is then operated to move the floor joist or beam and the fuselage skin align to correct gap allowances and the commercial aircraft may be assembled. This method allows for some misalignment or dimensional variation due to allowable longitudinal gap tolerances.
The aforementioned alignment tooling does have drawbacks however due to new composite fuselage designs. New designs for large-scale fuselage sections for commercial aircraft, for example, involve the fabrication of the circumferential sections or barrels that are a single, unitary piece having no longitudinal splices like previously described designs. Accordingly, due to the fabricated, unitary design, no splice gaps exist and therefore current alignment tooling cannot attach to both the fuselage sections and the floor beams without potentially damaging the fuselage sections and/or the floor beams. Moreover, current tooling fails to provide a mechanism for monitoring and controlling the amount of force utilized to push and pull the fuselage skin and to maneuver the floor beams, which also could potentially damage the composite designs.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an alignment apparatus and method for moving and/or aligning work pieces or the like. More particularly, it is desirable to provide an alignment tool for the assembly of commercial aircraft, for example, that is able to facilitate the alignment of a composite fuselage section and the fuselage floor beams or joists. More particularly, it is also desirable to provide an alignment tool that attaches to a composite fuselage skin that is able to flex the fuselage skin using a controlled force, preventing the likelihood of damaging the composite skin.